


The Fourteenth (March)

by Terr



Series: The Fourteenth [2]
Category: Open Heart (Visual Novels)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, March 14, Pi Day, go have a pie guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 11:27:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30021069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terr/pseuds/Terr
Summary: Ethan surprises Chiara with a pie and a joke to celebrate the Pi Day.
Relationships: Ethan Ramsey/Main Character (Open Heart)
Series: The Fourteenth [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2208186
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	The Fourteenth (March)

**Author's Note:**

> Pi Day fic is here - you might enjoy it better if you read The Fourteenth (February) first. Enjoy!

There was no reason for him to be this nervous. He has given the idea many of his thoughts, he even asked for an advice - all would be well. There was no need to be this nervous.

And things _have_ been going well.

“Can I make you dinner tonight?” he asked Chiara in the morning, the moment Harper and Tobias left the office. He half-expected her to tease him for being a gentleman even this deep into the relationship, but instead she smiled widely and nodded.

“As if I could say no to your food.”

The day passed calmly and really, there has been no reason for Ethan to be nervous.

He took her home, cooked a dinner – all while feeling her gaze on him, feeling, seeing her smile, a spark in her eyes almost mischievous and she said: “This is my favorite Ethan.”

“The cooking one?” he threw her a glance over his shoulder, the right corner of his mouth twitching in amusement.

“The one with his sleeves rolled up.”

And now he is standing in the entrance of his apartment, Chiara waiting at the dining table and Ethan can only guess, but he thinks her eyebrows are still raised up in an unspoken question – what is going on?

He asked her to wait for him right there and left the apartment to get an apple pie from the trunk of his car.

He is standing by the doorway and he is nervous. Nervous about the gesture he is going to make, nervous about Chiara’s reaction, nervous, nervous, nervous.

Taking his surrounding in, there is another collection of thoughts swirling through his mind all at once and these thoughts do not make him nervous.

They do make him feel many unrequired emotions, though.

It is stupid, the thought crossing his mind – _this feels like coming home._

Of course it feels like coming home, of course it does. He has lived at this place for years now.

And yet only now, seeing her small white sneakers put neatly next to his own shoes, her coat hanging on the wall, her smell lingering in the entrance, it feels like home.

Like maybe, perhaps, he has been coming back to an apartment until this moment.

It is stupid, the thought crossing his mind – _I am finally coming home._

It is the best thought he has had in a long, long while.

The apple pie in his hand – the best in whole Boston, recommended by Naveen and approved by Marlene - Ethan walks into the dining room.

His guess has been right – Chiara’s eyebrows were still higher than normally, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Hey Chiara,” he cleared his throat as he approached the table and put the pie on it. “Do you know what is Pi’s wife most used complaint? ‘ _He is irrational and goes on and on_.’”

Confusion crosses Chiara’s beautiful features first, but almost immediately she checks her phone for a date and the confusion is replaced by realization.

Chiara has never been the one to school her features, to hide her emotions – and so Ethan can see all of them, all of her thoughts displayed on her face and he thinks there is nothing he would rather stare at.

Surprise and then that small, almost invisible smile that carries more than any of her wide grins. She bites her bottom lip and blinks several times rapidly and Ethan is _so damn nervous_ because is she going to cry? Did he make her sad? Did he cross a line?

“You remembered,” she whispers at last.

“Yes,” Ethan nods and starts cutting the pie, just to give his hands something to do. The atmosphere it not exactly tense, but it’s quiet – at least until Chiara’s snicker cuts through the room, earning a surprised glance from Ethan.

“That joke was terrible,” she keeps on laughing and Ethan can feel his shoulders sag with relief. “I have to send it to mom and Alicia.”

Clearing his throat once again, Ethan speaks, his voice smaller than he’d like.

“I already sent it to them. I asked Lahela for an advice and he thought it was a good idea and I know he knows your family rather well, so I trusted him that he knows what he is saying,” he is speaking fast, words slightly slurred and it’s obvious that he is nervous, he can say that much, but letting the explanation out of his system is more important at the moment.

“I am not trying to replace your father or your brother, Chiara, please, I would never dare to think such a thing, I just wanted to maybe bring this tradition of yours back and-“

He is stopped by Chiara’s soft, small hands on his cheeks – when did she even get to him? – and quickly, she is pulling him down, closer to her until her lips, as soft as her hands (everything about her is soft, her skin and her hair and all the places he has touched – soft, soft, soft), are on his and he forgets what he wanted to say altogether.

She moves her lips gently but with a goal, biting his lower lip – gentle at that, too – until his lips are parted and she can kiss him deeper, better, with more passion and all the love she has to give.

When Chiara breaks the kiss, Ethan is breathing heavily, but her hands do not leave his cheeks. The thumb of her right hand caress his cheekbone with such care it makes his heart swell beneath the ribcage and her left hand finds its refuge in the subtle waves on the nape of his neck.

“Everything about this is perfect,” she whispers as she stands on her toes to place a lingering kiss on a corner of his mouth again, following the path to his nose and finally kissing the cheekbone she is not holding.

“Thank you,” she looks up at him and it’s simple thank you, a phrase used many times through the day, by many people, the phrase that barely carries any real meaning.

Looking into her emerald irises, her pupils so wide he almost catches a glimpse of himself in them, cheeks rosy and smile affectionate, with her hand still tangled in his hair, Ethan knows, feels, that this _thank you_ carries more meaning than he could have hoped for.

He feels as if the universe – his universe, at least – was expanding by the gaze Chiara gifts him, as if he could drown in the ocean of emotions she is showing him (Thank you. I trust you. I see you and I believe in you. I am proud of you and I know you are of me. I love you, I love you, I love you.) and he has never given much of his thoughts to the way he’d die but at this moment Ethan knows that drowning in Chiara would be the most prodigious way to go.


End file.
